


Initiation

by MrProphet



Category: Master of Orion (video game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 03:38:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10688988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet
Summary: Specifically, Master of Orion II.





	Initiation

In a body as vast as the Great and August Federation of Worlds, Empires, Sovereignties, Collectives, Hives Dominions and other Supra- and Sub-Planetary Nation States Signatory to the Twenty-Fifth Orion Peace Accords, there were bound to be differences: Differences between races, between worlds; between male and female; between telepath and non-telepath; shapeshifter and filthy, rotten, stinking sameling. Unity was political; division was endemic.

That was why initiation was so important. In order to work together, males and females of all the races of the galaxy had to create their own sense of belonging and united purpose. Some initiations were formal; others less so. The great passing out ceremony of the Orion Military Academy - so-called, many maintained, because packing so many people into one space meant that some were bound to lose consciousness - was as much as anything a test of military discipline and composure. The Rat Run was anything but.

The coolant ducts ran along the hull of the ship. Coolant from the engines and life support was pumped along just beneath the ship's inner skin, powering thermovoltaic cells to drain off heat before the fluid was returned to the engines. The flow was powerful and the coolant mildly corrosive, but a suit would protect you and the danger was part of the point. That was why each new member of the crew of the Long Range Survey and Patrol Vessel Or2836.04 was required to don a suit and ride the current in the cooling vents, keeping alert for the last maintenance hatch before the coolant went back into the engines and became hot enough to kill. It bred a sense of shared fear and common experience that bound the crew together.

Of course there was a safety grating, but no-one was told that in advance. They only found that out when, inevitably, they missed their grip and didn't plunge to a boiling doom.

**Author's Note:**

> Specifically, Master of Orion II.


End file.
